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This post is sponsored by Sunday Scaries—an Elephant Mindful Partner. They’re dedicated to helping you slay the everyday by handling your anxiety—and we’re proud to work with them. May it be of benefit! ~ ed.
I’ve been struggling with low-grade anxiety all my life.
It’s changed shaped over the years, but, these days, it reaches its peak late on Sunday afternoons, and normally goes something like this:
Ouch, my head hurts. I wish I hadn’t ordered that last round. Better not check my bank account…Oh, looks like Hannah is on holiday right now, wow. Why can’t I seem to save any money!? I probably need to find a better job. And now this HBO Go isn’t even working. It must be a sign—I’m a mess, my whole life is a mess…and how the heck is it even Monday tomorrow again?
Here we go again: the classic Sunday spiral…
It’s never completely debilitating, but it definitely has a persistent, repetitive pattern. And I’m not alone: 76% of Americans self-report having “really bad” Sunday night anxiety.
So what can we do about our everyday anxieties? Because they’re not (let’s face it) going away anytime soon…
4 Types of Everyday Anxiety & some Helpful Ways to Deal
1. Sunday Scaries
The Sunday Scaries are the anxiety that sets in on Sunday late afternoons and evenings with the impending return to the office, school, or work. Whether you call them The Sunday Scaries, The Sunday Blues, The Fear, The Shakes, The Dread—they’re there.
As The New York Times describes them, “It is Sunday afternoon, sometime past 3 o’clock. The weekend hourglass is spilling its treasure… unmistakably, there is company.” That company? Well, you know.
There are “cures,” but it’s simply not that easy. You can change the stuff in your life that’s getting you down pre-Monday—like your job, say—but that may take some time.
So, for now, pour a cup of coffee or a lemon water, put on an oversized long-sleeve t-shirt, find a romantic comedy on your Apple TV, pop some Sunday Scaries CBD gummies (so named for this very reason), and settle in—because, like I said, they’re not going away anytime soon, but you can handle ’em.
2. Hangxiety
A close relative of the Sunday Scaries, this is the anxiety we experience when we’ve had way more to drink the night before than is appropriate for a so-called adult. Characteristics of this common subcategory of anxiety are thoughts that resemble the following:
OMG, I am so hungover: my head! How much did I even spend last night? I hope no-one tagged me in any pictures. Seriously, my head. I don’t ever want to go out again. I have no money to ever go out again. I hate myself.
Hangxiety is a real thing on a physical level, too, because of alcohol’s effect on your brain and how alcohol lowers your serotonin levels.
Cures for hangxiety are similar to the Sundays, just add some practical measures: get plenty of rest, rehydrate, gulp in deep breaths of fresh air (before returning to some mindless romcom consumption), grab some greasy nourishment, hop in a warm shower, reconnect with the people who really know you (code for phone your mom), and touch yourself—not necessarily in that order!
2. FOMO
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is driven largely by our social media culture. Before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat…we didn’t spend a whole heck of a lot of time visually eavesdropping on the lives of our friends, semi-friends, and casual acquaintances—nevermind influencers and the Insta famous.
Remind yourself that FOMO is just a figment of your social feed-addicted brain, telling you that there’s somewhere better you could be, something better you could be doing, or someone sexier you could be with…
Besides reaching for the calming effects of a CBD tincture for anxiety, taking a few deep, grounding breaths, and using any of the other coping tools already mentioned, the most powerful antidote to FOMO is JOMO: the joy of missing out.
“JOMO (the joy of missing out) is the emotionally intelligent antidote to FOMO and is essentially about being present and being content with where you are at in life.” ~ Kristen Fuller, M.D.
JOMO is basically about saying f*ck the notifications, distractions, filters, and endlessly negative comments, and embracing the joy of just being where and who you are—no likes necessary.
Make your own time your priority instead of wasting so much of it looking at what others are doing with theirs. Celebrate your own joys and triumphs instead of constantly feeding the feeling of not having your sh*t together as much as everyone on Instagram. Embrace real life over social media life with pastimes like cooking, spending time outdoors, and having dinner with our families (you know, those old-fashioned things we used to do back in the day?). Give yourself permission to say “no” and slow the hell down enough to enjoy your actual life right now, guilt-free.
4. End-of-the-world-o-phobia.
We’re less than 12 years away from irreversible climate change, there’s an island of plastic in the Pacific ocean twice the size of Texas, Trump is still all up in our faces, and my boyfriend actually can’t sleep at night because he’s so worried about Brexit.
Life in 2019 is…a lot, and we have three choices when faced with the reality of it. We can bury our heads in the sand and block everyone and everything that isn’t “good vibes only.” We can freak out and go catatonic…the end of the world is coming anyway, what’s the point of even carrying on? Or we can find a way to accept—even embrace—this crazy mess of a world we live in so that we can help make it a bit brighter, kinder, funnier..less uptight and sad.
So, do something: volunteer at a homeless shelter, donate some blankets to your local animal rescue…small actions still count, add up, and help you feel less powerless). Vote with your dollars: support local, support eco, support companies that care and are doing something to help this whole mess we’re in by choosing carefully what you spend your hard-earned cash on.
IMAGE: PIXABAY
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